Shop Talk

The recession strikes again

The recession hammered U.S. holiday sales last year and new research suggests that it also drove up ”shrink” — a retail industry term for shoplifting, employee theft, and administrative errors.

An estimated $36.5 billion was lost to “shrink” in 2008, according to preliminary findings from the latest National Retail Security Survey released today.

That figure is up from $34.8 billion in 2007, an increase of nearly 5 percent.

The survey, conducted by the National Retail Federation and the University of Florida, also showed that retail shrink averaged 1.52 percent of retail sales in 2008, up from 1.44 percent in 2007.